The FBI on Thursday confirmed that it is investigating Aliviane Inc., a behavioral health agency with strong political ties, and S. Fernando Rodriguez, a suspended UTEP professor who might have made more than $1 million evaluating the agency's grant-funded programs.

It was the first time the FBI acknowledged that it had launched an investigation into Aliviane and Rodriguez as part of the FBI's massive public corruption investigation in El Paso.

Federal authorities in December indicted Cirilo "Chilo" Madrid, Aliviane's former CEO, in connection with a contract between the Border Children's Mental Health Collaborative and LKG Enterprises, a company owned by Madrid's associate, Ruben "Sonny" Garcia.

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Marty Schladen

LKG and Garcia were also indicted.

Madrid and Garcia are accused of bribing former County Judge Dolores Briones with $24,000 in exchange for a $600,000 contract funded in part by the federal government. Madrid and Garcia allegedly did not provide the services they were paid for by the program, which is meant to help children with severe mental illnesses.

Madrid was awarded a subcontract by a subordinate at Aliviane, Jose Soria. Madrid was paid $100,000 to produce a 20-page report, sections of which were plagiarized from the Internet, Madrid said in 2010 in a deposition.

In documents, Garcia said that Rodriguez wrote the proposal in 2005 for the LKG contract and that Rodriguez was hired to evaluate the collaborative.

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But Veronica Frescas, who handled public affairs for the collaborative at the time, has said that Rodriguez also did not produce the work he was paid to do.

Aliviane's tax records show it paid Rodriguez $914,000 to evaluate its programs between 2001 and 2009, the last year for which records are available.

Aliviane also has paid LKG and another company Garcia owns, Garson LLC, hundreds of thousands of dollars to evaluate its programs.

Richard Perkins, Aliviane's executive deputy director, has said Rodriguez has never found any serious shortcomings in any of Aliviane's programs.

Last week, Perkins said Rodriguez had been working at no charge for Aliviane since February, but Perkins didn't explain why.

"That's probably a question we should leave to the board," he said.

Perkins couldn't be reached on Thursday, but last week he said a new CEO for Aliviane had not been hired.

"The board hasn't done anything," Perkins said.

U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes also couldn't be reached on Thursday. In December, after the El Paso Times uncovered Madrid's connections to the LKG contract, Reyes called on the FBI to investigate Madrid and Aliviane.

"Given the concerns being raised, any mishandling of public funds must be investigated and any wrongdoing should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," Reyes said then in a statement. "In regards to misuse of public funds in the past, present, and future, my office has contacted the FBI, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar, state Rep. Marisa Marquez, and Mayor John Cook so we can work together to ensure that public funds are handled correctly."

There are several ties between Reyes and Aliviane.

His brother and campaign manager, Jesus "Chuy" Reyes, was on the Aliviane board of directors. So was a member of the congressman's staff, Guillermo Valenzuela, who left the congressman's office in December 2009 to work full-time at Aliviane.

Around the same time that Valenzuela went to work at Aliviane, Reyes got a $250,000 earmark for the agency. The congressman had asked for $1 million in Justice Department funds for the program.

Also in 2009, Reyes honored Aliviane in a speech on the House floor, and he's received campaign contributions from Madrid.

Rodriguez, who couldn't be reached Thursday, also owns a company that has paid $90,000 to a Washington, D.C., lobbyist since 2009, federal lobbying disclosure reports show. The lobbying effort was aimed, at least in part, at securing federal funding for the Aliviane program that Reyes requested the earmark for, the disclosure reports show.

Until he was suspended at UTEP, Rodriguez founded and ran the Open Source Crime Lab, which was funded in part by another Reyes earmark. That facility apparently hasn't served the agencies Rodriguez said it would serve in grant documents, but university administrators insist that it is producing good data and has a bright future.

Rodriguez, who was director of UTEP's Criminal Justice Program, has been on paid leave from his $97,000-a-year job since February, while administrators consider whether to punish him for not reporting his outside work as required by university rules.

University spokesman Chris Lechuga on Thursday said administrators were still considering what to do about Rodriguez, a tenured professor.

University administrators did not immediately respond late Thursday to news that Rodriguez was the subject of a federal investigation.